John Sciacca

If beauty is only skin deep, it runs awful thick in the new Soledge Canto range of wireless audio components. All of the components are covered in a thick layer of eye-catching, bright white Corian, making for stunning components that look every bit as beautiful as they sound. I couldn’t resist running my hands across the tops of the components, reveling in the feel of ultra-high-end build quality.

A fairly common complaint I hear in my custom showroom is the inability to hear dialog while watching TV or movies. The scenario plays out almost identically every single time. A couple will come in, usually older, and the husband will stand there sheepishly while his wife explains that her husband’s hearing has deteriorated and now it’s to the point where he can’t hear the TV unless he blasts the volume which is then too loud for her to tolerate. The husband will then usually chime in that his hearing is fine, and that he just has a hard time with the dialog. But do we have anything that would help so they could both enjoy TV together?

So, first off, guys! I’m not sure what it is that we’re doing in our younger years, but, dammit! It is causing us all to go slowly deaf as we get older! We need to pull it together!

Manufacturers have been so busy focusing on video upgrades with 3D, 4K, local dimming, and OLED, they’ve pretty much forgotten that audio makes up at least 50 percent of the experience. The end result is that we haven’t really seen any significant surround sound advancements since 2000 following the release of Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace, which brought Surround EX and rear channels.

Sonance showed a massive redo of its amplifier line-up, reducing offerings from 29 amp models down to a lean-and-mean five! At the same time, the company made significant improvements throughout the line, making significant feature upgrades and going from a traditional inefficient, heat producing, analog design to new digital models.